Holland, Thomas, 2nd Earl of Kent born in 1350, After an early career soldiering abroad Holland became one of the less spectacular props of Richard II's regime, established mainly on the south coast, in and around Hampshire.

Perhaps most significantly, the second marriage in 1361 of his mother, Joan, to Edward, the Black Prince, meant that Holland had a younger half-brother, the future king
Richard II.

Thomas Holland's early career from 1366 was spent in military service abroad, first in Spain and then in France. He was knighted by his stepfather and godfather, the Black Prince, at Vitoria in Castile in 1367, and was made a knight of the Garter in 1376. His power and influence was restricted by the fact that his mother, Joan, held the estates of the Kent inheritance in her own right until her death in 1385. To help offset this somewhat, Thomas was married in c.1364 to Alice, daughter of
Richard II Fitzalan, the wealthy earl of Arundel; Alice's dowry was 4000 marks, and the Black Prince enfeoffed the couple with lands worth 500 marks in three Yorkshire manors.

They had seven children:

Thomas Holland, 1st Duke of Surrey born in 1374 - 7th January1400, who succeeded him as 3rd Earl of Kent.

Holland had a
violent temper,
which got him in
trouble several
times. The most
famous incident
occurred during
Richard II's
1385
expedition to
the
Kingdom of
Scotland.
An archer in the
service of Ralph
Stafford, eldest
son of
the Earl of
Stafford,
killed one of
Holland's
esquires.
Stafford went to
find Holland to
apologize, but
Holland killed
him as soon as
he identified
himself. The
king had
Holland's lands
seized. Their
mother died
during this
time, it is said
of grief at
these events.

Over the next
several years he
held a number of
additional
offices:
constable of
Conway Castle
(1394),
governor of
Carlisle
(1395),
and then
governor and
then
constable-general
of the west
marches towards
Scotland. His
military
services were
interrupted by a
pilgrimage to
the Holy Land in
1394,
which may be
connected with
his earlier
troubles with
the Staffords

He then went
with Richard on
the king's
1399
Ireland
expedition. When
they returned
the king sent
him to try to
negotiate with
Holland's
brother-in-law
Henry
Bolingbroke.
After Henry
deposed Richard
and took the
throne, as Henry
IV, he called to
account those
who had been
involved in the
downfall of
Thomas of
Woodstock, and
in the end took
away all rewards
Richard had give
them after
Thomas' arrest.
Thus Holland
became again
merely Earl of
Huntingdon.

Holland, along with many of Richard's advisors, was arrested after Richard's deposition by Henry IV in 1399. In the end he had to forfeit the honours and estates he had gained after the arrests of Gloucester and Arundel, and thus went back to just being Earl of Kent.

Richard II's accession in 1377 meant that Holland's half-brother was now king. To reflect this, he received a gift of 100 marks and an exchequer annuity of £200 in 1378, later augmented to 1000 marks in rents. He was also given custody of the royal forests south of the Trent in July 1377, and was appointed marshal of England in March 1380. The south was becoming his base: he resided much at Talworth Manor in Surrey (given him by his mother in October 1382); he became captain of Southampton in June 1380 to repel the French threat; and he served on the Surrey and Hampshire commissions of the peace. Late in 1380 he was accorded the title earl of Kent, which his father had held only briefly. His military experience was used to help suppress the peasants' revolt in Kent in 1381, and then as captain of the English bastion of Cherbourg from November 1384.

The death of his mother, Joan, in August 1385 brought to Holland the considerable estates of her inheritance. He was now a wealthy magnate, but played no great role in the political upheavals of 13869, having lost the post of marshal in June 1385. He was made constable of the Tower of London in May 1387, but then rather faded from the court scene in the 1390s, increasingly preferring his Hampshire residences at Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst. He became constable first of Corfe Castle (with his wife) in May 1391, and then of Carisbrooke Castle in July 1396, and was appointed to the Wiltshire commission of the peace in December 1390. The focus of his inherited estates lay less in the south than in the north-east midlands, especially Lincolnshire, and it was from there he dispensed his grants and patronage, yet even in the south his influence was not dominant, with no obvious nexus of Holland supporters in local posts. Thomas Holland died on 25 April 1397. He was buried shortly afterwards in Bourne Abbey, Lincolnshire, following a funeral in Westminster Abbey. According to Adam Usk, after Holland's death one of the earl's greyhounds spontaneously made its way to the king, and accompanied him everywhere, until the moment in 1399 when Richard deserted his army in Wales, whereupon the dog abandoned the king and joined the duke of Lancaster.

Holland's widow, Alice, remained constable of Corfe Castle until 1407 and then retired to Beaulieu Abbey; she died on 17 March 1416.